Incident "Quick Clearance" Legislation: Will It Effectively Reduce Congestion?

Innovative incident management strategies have been sought by transportation professionals to minimize the impacts of incidents on traffic operation and safety. More agencies will move to adopt these strategies as information becomes available regarding how well these tools can mitigate the current traffic problems faced in every major metropolitan area of the United States. Some current “quick clearance” strategies, such as “Steer It and Clear It” legislation in South Carolina, which requires driver(s) of the involved vehicle(s) in a minor incident to move vehicles promptly from the traveled roadway prior to the arrival of the first responders, can potentially reduce the duration of an incident. The research detailed in this paper endeavored to measure the benefit of the Steer It and Clear It law on one particular freeway network in South Carolina. A simulation analysis, using a microscopic traffic simulation platform PARAMICS, suggested that by implementing the Steer It and Clear It legislation that resulted in reduced incident clearance time, the total traffic delay can be reduced by 11 percent for minor incidents with one lane blocked. This reduced delay in turn resulted in an average cost savings of $1,682 per incident, which is significant when considering the number of minor incidents occurring on a daily basis in large metropolitan areas. Besides affecting congestion and its associated problems, reducing the incident duration through the Steer It and Clear It law can also improve the safety of road users and incident response personnel.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Hamlin, Carol
  • Fries, Ryan
  • Chowdhury, Mashrur A
  • Ma, Yongchang
  • Ozbay, Kaan
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2007-1-21 to 2007-1-25
• Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; Maps; References;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: TRB 86th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Clearances (Navigation); Emergency response time; Highway operations; Incident detection; Incident management; Traffic congestion; Traffic delays
• Identifier Terms: Paramics (Computer program)
• Uncontrolled Terms: Accident clearance time; Clearance time (Traffic incidents); Minor accidents
• Geographic Terms: South Carolina
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01045037
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 07-3349
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 30 2007 7:00AM